Health literacy and its role within cardiovascular disease: a primer from a cardiology perspective

Introduction Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Cardiovascular disease is preventable by managing modifiable risk factors, but this requires support to improve patients’ health literacy. Patients with cardiovascular disease have significant challenges understanding and engaging with healthcare, which can compromise their health outcomes.Aims This commentary reviews relationships between health literacy and cardiovascular disease and proposes recommendations for improving cardiovascular management in healthcare settings.Results Improving health literacy is a significant issue in cardiovascular disease prevention. There are factors that are associated with health literacy at both individual and system levels which may influence a patient’s health literacy. Health professionals can support heart health literacy through checking their patients’ health literacy needs, being aware of their own misconceptions and biases, using written, verbal, and visual communication strategies that are easy to understand, and avoiding unexplained medical jargon. Organisations can support this through training multidisciplinary teams and providing clear discharge information that patients can understand and act on.Conclusion Supporting health literacy among cardiovascular disease patients is paramount to (1) enable patients to regain control over their health, (2) decrease cardiovascular disease hospital admissions and (3) reduce costs to the public health sector. Both individual and system level interventions are needed to support heart health literacy and improve patient outcomes in healthcare settings.